Johnny - Hallelujah

[JB]

I was honored to be asked by Tina to play some music at the memorial. During the first and only song i got to play, lightning tore accross the sky, and I was humbled by my backing band of thunder.

I am intialed JB, i am a jokester, asshole, climber, musician, sandbagger, and lover of experience... we had all that in common. We always talked about playing songs together. It's not climbing with him i'll miss as much as never getting to share that other passion.

John helped me bolt my first and only sport climb. He encouraged me as I onsighted it (it's never felt so easy since), he turned me into a verb by purposefully pulling me off of subatomic onto a shitty cam. He dragged me up some random choss pile in the dark and was as excited to climb with a pal on a choss heep like hooky pals as he was on a ultra classic (such as shaggy). We talked on the phone about what climbing should be... about drilled pockets, trad ego, climbers as agents of change, and as property owners.

I am a person of faith. John held no claim to a faith, but the song I played for him seems very fitting. Here are the words.
=============
Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
Ah but now you never show it to me, do you?
Yeah but I remember
Yeah when I moved in you
And the holy dove she was moving too
Yes and every single breath that we drew was Hallelujah!

And maybe there’s a god above
But all I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come all this way to fool you
Yeah and even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.
================

amen.

Jason Burton

[Artsay]

Beautiful, JB...

The memorial was lovely and the weather was perfect.
Shannon's words made me cry..."When I first heard of Johnny's death my first thought was that there was now this big hole in the world..."
The slide show was beautiful and showed me glimpses into John's life I never would've known.
Tina's recap of the song they wrote 18 years ago - that meant nothing then and everything now - sent chills up my spine.
John's brother, Witt, (a fitting name for John's brother, BTW) shared private stories of a canoeing trip they took back in '96 for 80 days up around the Arctic Ocean. I'm so thankful to him for sharing...

When all was shared, cried about, laughed at, sang to, and eaten, that's when the sky lit up and thunder rang.

Hearing the sounds of the storm quickly upon us, I was reminded of what Tina said about Johnny not wanting a funeral or people wasting their time at an occasion to honor his death. As I ran to the car, I laughed out loud, thinking of Johnny all around us sending rain, thunder, and lightning down as if saying, "Now you all get out of here and quit wasting anymore time on me!".

I'm gonna miss the big guy. He was a very special human being.

[Jeff]

Great words from both of you.
I came really close to crying a couple of times while listening to family and close friends reflect on their relataionships with John. I always wanted to get to know him better, but always fell into my same old groove of not really making the effort or thinking 'why would he want to get to know me?'.
It is my loss that I didn't try harder.
It was great to see and feel all the love that people had for the man.

[dipsi]

Agree, Jeff! It seems very important to me now to take a moment to stop and speak to other climbers. As Chester said, "What other people don't understand is that we are a community." John always made me feel welcome in the community. My fondest memory of John is his mock strip dance at Derbyfest and me stuffing a dollar in his harness. Thanks JB and Artsay for sharing your thoughts.

John will always be remembered and he will always be young.

[hamsco]

Thanks for sharing JB.

[88keys]

Thanks to everyone!
Tina